SUNDOWN
Michel Franco is back at the Venice Film Festival competition, a year later the raw and prophetic Nuevo Orden that won the Silver Lion. Sundown is the story of a rich English family spending a holiday in Acapulco. Alice and Neil Bennett with the young Colin and Alexa are enjoying the Mexican sun, but an unpleasant event forces them to interrupt their trip. It is not the only upsetting accident and the balance of the family is at risk.
Sundown includes many of the topics already seen in his previous movies. The hypocrisy of the family dynamics, the dormant violence suddenly erupting, social contrasts. He worked on these kinds of stories in different and original ways through the years, always depicting a strong critic to contemporary society. Despues de Lucia, his second movie, is an exposé of bullying framed in a family hit by a tragedy. Las hijas de April talks about a dysfunctional family full of sordid secrets. Franco loves exploring the psychology of people put in extreme conditions, a process that had its climax with Nuevo Orden.
The Bennetts are played by Tim Roth that works with Michel Franco after Chronic that won the best screenplay in Cannes (2015). Next to him, there’s Charlotte Gainsbourg that is also the protagonist of Les choses humaines, out of competition, directed by her partner Yvan Attal.
«It is not a coincidence that Sundown takes place in Acapulco» says Franco about Sundown. «This exploration of all perspectives present in Acapulco is also a character study, and a study of family dynamics. The sun occupies a primordial place; it hits always aggressively and directly».
Alessandro De Simone
